Science and Progress
by charocon
Summary: Post Reichenbach. John adjusting to having Sherlock back in his life after discovering that he's alive.
1. Chapter 1

"John?" Sherlock asked impatiently. He didn't like being ignored.

"For the last time Sherlock, I'm writing! Can't it wait?"

Sherlock paused for a moment and sighed. "Fine. I'll just work on the Jepson murder case by myself then." he snapped, then went back to his microscope at the kitchen table.

"I don't see how I'd be much help anyway, you know I'm no good with all that forensics malarky." said John. He sounded a tad disappointed at the fact that he wouldn't be much use to Sherlock, despite Sherlock sounding as if he desperately wanted John's help.

The two men had been flatmates for over three years now. To the unknowing passer by they were as different as chalk and cheese. But to anyone who knew them they were the perfect team. I believe the phrase 'opposites attract' is quite appropriate. They each gave the other something that they couldn't give themselves. Sherlock gave John a new lease of life, a fresh start and something to live for after being discharged from the army; and John gave Sherlock morals, a helping hand and the conscience he so desperately needed if Lestrade were to continue letting him help with cases. John grounded Sherlock, he kept him sane.

"POISON! I knew I was right!" Sherlock shouted, punching the table at his sudden realisation.  
"Hey, watch it!" John shouted back. "That is mahogany!"

"Don't you see, John? ! It's in her blood sample!" Sherlock said as if expecting John to have read his mind. John shot him an extremely confused look.

Sherlock sighed. "Come on John! It's obvious!"  
It was far from obvious to John.  
"The nurse would have sneaked the TETS into Cathy Jepson's bloodstream via her drip! It would have been pumped into her system constantly and none of the other hospital staff would be any the wiser. It would have been virtually undetectable to any of them, almost invisible. Genius." A grin began to spread across his face. John seemed uneasy at this, he never understood how Sherlock could have absolutely no sympathy for any of the victims in the cases they solved.

"Come on, we're off to Scotland Yard. Text Lestrade and tell him to meet us there. My phone's on the coffee table"

Sherlock put on his coat in one clean sweep. John put down his laptop (leaving his most recent blog entry unfinished), scooped up Sherlock's mobile and began to text Lestrade as they bounded down the stairs.

Greg, it's John.  
Sherlock wants you to meet us at Scotland Yard.  
I think he might have solved the Jepson case.

Sherlock hailed a cab and they both jumped in the back. He was still grinning with delight. "What are you so happy about?" John asked, sounding annoyed. "This time yesterday you told me that you thought this case was boring. That 'Even the blokes in Lestrade's division can figure this one out.'"

It was true, Sherlock had never solved a case so quickly and easily, he had practically figured out the solution not one hour after Lestrade had given him the details. But they wouldn't have believed him until they had evidence of a foreign chemical in Cathy Jepson's body. That was the real challenge for Sherlock, given that was one of the most unrecognisable poisons in the world. The doctors at Bart's had decided that it must have been a morphine overdose, a mistake made by one of the rookie, newly trained nurses. But when Sherlock discovered a previous connection between Cathy Jepson and her nurse - which none of the hospital staff had known about - it took him less than thirty minutes to find the nurses motive for murdering her, and even less time to figure out how. So, of course Sherlock kept this information to himself until he had solid proof that Cathy Jepson had been intentionally killed.

This case was childs play for Sherlock. So it was no surprise that John, Lestrade and even Sally were shocked when he said he would help. Lestrade had almost not even offered it to him, assuming that he would turn it down immediately. He tried his best to save only the trickiest cases for Sherlock, the ones that he knew his men at Scotland Yard had no chance of solving by themselves. But none of those cases had come up over the last few months and Sherlock was becoming extremely bored. The walls of 221B had taken such a pounding that Mrs Hudson had to call God knows how many plasterers in to fix the damage inflicted by various different weapons that Sherlock kept under his bed and in his wardrobe.

"Boredom." Sherlock answered after a few minutes of silent thought. John suspected as much.

The two had been distant since Sherlock had come back 6 months earlier. John had lived thinking Sherlock was dead for over a year before he showed up unnanounced on the doorstep of their flat. There had been a lot of swearing, hugging, and tears of joy on John's part. Sherlock had just stood there in silence, staring into space. He did so for about fifteen minutes before making himself a cup of tea, and resigning to the sofa where he picked up a book off the arm that John had not moved since he had "died", and began to read from the exact word he left it at. This angered John. Sherlock acting as if nothing had happened whatsoever. Like he had just gotten back from the shop.  
John knew that Sherlock felt exactly the same as he did. Guilty, relieved, sad and also overcome with absolute joy. But John also knew that Sherlock wasn't used to such overwhelming emotions, and could find no way to express them, so his anger quickly subsided after a few days.  
Sherlock looked exactly the same to John as he did when he had last seen him. His thick, dark brown curls hadn't appeared to have grown a milimetre. His clothes looked as if they had just been cleaned, and there wasn't a single trace of stubble on his chiselled face. John had tried to not be too suspicious about this, and just relish in his happiness, and the knowledge that he had his best friend back, alive and well. Although John couldn't yet comment on Sherlock's psychological state.

John had been replaying that first moment he had seen Sherlock in more than a year over in his mind during the short cab ride to Scotland Yard.

When they arrived Sherlock leaped gracefully out of the taxi and glided into the giant glass building. John kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock and slipped a note of unknown value into the drivers hand almost automatically. The driver didn't say a word to John as he stepped out onto the pavement and followed Sherlock suit.


	2. Chapter 2

People stared as Sherlock and John walked through the bulding. They had not been there very often for the past few months and now whenever they were, a welcoming party of gawking, gossipping office workers was always there. It was as if they had both risen from the dead. Well, I suppose in Sherlock's case he did to a certain extent.

Of course Sherlock was also met by the usual greeting of "Freak." from Sally Donovan, and a familiar glare from Anderson. Neither of these affected him in any way.

"Sorry for waking you up Inspector" Sherlock said calmly as he and John entered Lestrade's office.  
"W-what. I wasn't. How did you-? You know what, never mind" Lestrade replied, he sounded very confused.  
"Nonsense Inspector. Please, allow me. I haven't had this opportunity for quite a while" said Sherlock "The suit that you're wearing is creased, a sign that you threw it on - hmmm - half an hour ago as the creases haven't quite faded yet. You wore the suit on your flight back from New York at about 3:00am GMT judging by the time on your watch and your new statue of liberty keyring. You then took the suit off, leaving it in a heap - hence the creases - when you went for a nap, only to be woken up by John's text. Then you put the suit back on in a rush and drove here. I can tell by the dark circles under your eyes and the kink in your hair that it was a restless sleep."

Lestrade looked astounded. Sherlock was exactly right as always and Lestrade usually wasn't very surprised by his deductions. But the fatigue was taking it's toll on him.

"Apologies, once again Lestrade. You must be terribly jetlagged."

"Hmmm, just a tad." replied Lestrade hoarsely. "I'll live." He didn't sound terribly convinced.  
"So, go on. How did you solve the Jepson case?"

Sherlock explained to Lestrade in great detail about the TETS being sneaked into Cathy Jepsons medication, showed him the blood sample, and told him about the nurses previous connection and motive to kill her.

"Good. I'll tell the lads to arrest the nurse."  
"Yes." Sherlock said in agreement. "Well, John. You and I should best be off now then."  
John nodded.  
"Oh, so I can get some sleep now, can I?" Lestrade said with mock anger.  
"Indeed. Good evening Inspector." said Sherlock, and him and John turned to leave.

"Oh, wait! I almost forgot!" Lestrade called after them as they were about to depart.  
John and Sherlock strolled back in to the office. "Here." Said Lestrade as he handed them each a keyring with the slogan "I 'HEART' NY" on.  
"Thanks." John said with a chuckle.  
"A keyring? said Sherlock. "I have no use for such trinkets."  
"He means thank you." John interjected.  
Lestrade laughed and winked at them as they finally left.

The journey back to Baker Street was a short and silent one.

When they arrived back at the flat at around 9pm, John slung his jacket on the sofa, deleted all of his previous blog entry and began a new one on the case Sherlock had just solved: 'Intravenous Death'.  
Sherlock went into his bedroom and didn't return until the morning.

John had already gone to the surgery when Sherlock got up at 11am.  
He was already bored when he had been awake for less than fifteen minutes. Usually when he was in the middle of solving a case, Sherlock would wake up, roll out of bed and get to work before he even got dressed. But with no interesting cases coming up recently, he had nothing to do.

Before 12 he had already eaten (which was a rarity); come up with a new violin composition and was able to play it perfectly; and had finished the book that he had started the previous morning.

He was completely alert so going back to bed was out of the question.  
In the end he resorted to watching daytime television. He pretended that he hated it when John was around, but it was secretly a guilty pleasure of his.  
Sherlock enjoyed deducting things about the lives of people on The Jeremy Kyle Show when he had nothing better to do.  
"Gay, but in the closet."  
"Married, but his girlfriend doesn't know"  
"Pregnant. And good God even she doesn't know yet."  
Sherlock muttered his findings out loud to himself as person after person came and went from the blue chairs on the Jeremy Kyle Show stage.

By 3pm Sherlock was well and truly bored out of his mind. John wouldn't be home for over another two hours and he didn't feel like bothering Mrs Hudson just so he had somebody to talk to. She was probably busy with other, land lady type things anyway.

When John eventually returned home from work Sherlock was fully dressed, and sat on the sofa with his laptop open.  
"Oh, good you're home." said Sherlock without even taking his eyes from the screen.  
"That makes a change." John said. "Usually it's just 'where have you been?' or 'I asked you to make me a cup of tea three hours ago, I'm still waiting'"  
"Yes, well. I got a tad preoccupied reading your blog."  
"Yeah? Well, what did you think?"  
"Hmm... well I have to say that 'Intravenous Death' is quite a catchy title."  
"Well, that's something"  
"Yes. Finally a title to one of your entries that doesn't sound as if it belongs in a weekly women's magazine."

John ignored the underlying insult of that comment, and tried to take on board Sherlock's, 'constructive' criticism.  
"Yeah, I-I'll keep that in mind." John said as he walked to the kitchen and put down his things on the table.

John seemed stressed. He did do most of the time recently.  
Sherlock got up, went over to him and rested a hand on John's shoulder.  
John sighed and smiled. This was about as close to a hug as he ever got from Sherlock since he came back after the fall.  
Their friendship had deteriorated quite a lot since then. At first the two of them were just adjusting to having the other back in their lives again. But eventually it got quite awkward. It was like they had both become so accustomed to living without the other, that it was a great shock to them to be living how they were just 12 months before. This wasn't helped by the fact that Sherlock wouldn't reveal to John where he had been for the past year, what had happened to him and why he had to fake his own death. Whenever this topic was brought up, a great argument always followed. In the end John had to just let it go. The spark between them that was always there when they solved cases together was gone. Their friendship was slowly fading out. Soon they would simply be flatmates, and nothing more. This prospect frightened John more than anything.

The two of them stood there in silence for 10 minutes before Sherlock's display of affection was interrupted by the sound of his phone. He had a text.  
Sherlock lifted his hand from John's shoulder and went to retrieve his mobile from the arm of the sofa. He stared at the screen intently for a few moments before he looked up into John's eyes.

"It's Mycroft." He said.  
"He says there's a car outside and that we're both to get in it and to not panic."  
John was befuddled, neither of them had heard from Mycroft in months.  
This was most out of the ordinary. But then, so was Mycroft.  
"He also says to pack. Enough to last at least a week."  
John didn't speak. He just did as instructed.

After a few minutes of packing, the two of them left the comfort and safety 221B, slipped a note in Mrs Hudson's letterbox briefly explaining the situation, and got into the back of a generic Mycroft car waiting for them on the pavement - black, with the back windows tinted, and a sharply dressed driver holding the door open for them.

It was about 6pm now, and - being the middle of British winter - it was already pitch black outside.  
When the three of them were settled in and had their seatbelts fastened, the driver spoke.  
"I would try and get some sleep if I were you" he said in a soft, northern English voice.  
"It's quite a long drive where we're going and you both look knackered already."

It was true. They had both been so deprived of sleep recently. Sherlock out of boredom, and John out of stress.  
Sherlock didn't listen and just stared out of the window.  
John on the other hand, made himself comfortable, and slowly shut his eyes as the car started, and they began to drive to their unknown destination.


	3. Chapter 3

When John woke up, dawn was just breaking outside.  
He was sat upright with Sherlock's head resting on his right shoulder. He had eventually dozed off too.  
John was about to drift off again when he noticed that the driver was asleep too.  
John shot up in an instant and Sherlock flopped to the side where his head rested against the right window of the car.  
John was just about to shake the driver out of his slumber when he noticed that they were still moving very steadily and safely. Having just woken up, John was still a bit dazed, but the scent of salt water in the air was unmistakable. And yes, when John rubbed the condensation from the window on his side of the car and peered outside, his prediction was confirmed.  
They were on a boat.

A ferry to be more precise. A very small ferry; their's was the only car on it. But a ferry nonetheless.

About a thousand questions raced through John's mind at once.  
"Where are we going?"  
"How long will we be gone?"  
"Are we going out of the country?"  
"How much longer is this journey going to take?"

He knew that only one person would be able to answer all of his questions just by taking a brief look around.  
But waking Sherlock would just mean more sleep deprivation for both of them. So John tried to push his anxious thoughts to the back of his mind and relax. This was a lot harder than it first seemed. He became fidgety and was completely wide awake within five minutes.

John was restless and didn't get comfortable until Sherlock stirred and rested his head on John's shoulder again.  
John let a small smile spread across his lips and closed his eyes.

It was only now that he began to notice just how cold it was. Even with all the hi-tech heating on in the car John could still see his breath in the air.  
Sherlock was fine, he had his great big coat, scarf and leather gloves on that he always wore everywhere, even in the middle of summer.  
John however was only wearing the clothes he had worn to work that day. Or the day before, he wasn't quite sure of how long they'd been gone. He was just wearing a shirt and a suit. Neither of which were particularly insulating.  
He tried to not shiver so as not to wake Sherlock. If he did he would never hear the end of it. "John, you're always telling me to sleep and then when I do, you go and wake me up!".

John was becoming increasingly aware of what he and Sherlock looked like. Sherlock's head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around him. No wonder people thought they were a couple. Although, John was past caring what people thought about them. He knew that they were just friends. Sherlock knew that they were just friends. That was enough.

There had never been anything more than friendship between them - contrary to popular belief. Their relationship was somewhat of a mystery to anyone apart from themselves. John was completely aware that Sally Donovan thought that the both of them were "going at it" behind closed doors, and that it was "only a matter of time before they come out". Lestrade however was much more reserved about his assumptions. But John could sense some subtext whenever he asked him "How's the Mrs?" when Sherlock wasn't around, but he just usually laughed and shrugged it off. None of these things bothered John much. He was completely comfortable with his sexuality. He was a perfectly happy, straight man.

John had had a lot of girlfriends in the past. The majority of which had just been short flings. He'd had one serious girlfriend a few years ago though. Grace. They had met at university, studied together at Bart's and were completely inseperable. They had even planned to get married and possibly have children. Unfortunately she died not long after they got engaged. They had both been in a car accident. John recovered fine, with barely a scratch on him. But Grace had suffered from internal bleeding and died in hospital.

John didn't know what to do with himself. When the doctor told him that there was nothing more they could do, John punched him in the face and ran. Over the next few months John almost when insane with grief. If he hadn't had his sister Harry to comfort him, he probably would have gone insane too.

That was when John joined the army. With no Grace in his life, he had nothing to live for. And he couldn't kill himself. He knew how upset Harry and his parents would be and he couldn't bear to put anyone else through the same grief he had just experienced himself. So, the army it was. John thought that it would perhaps give him a purpose again, and it certainly did. So when he was discharged after being shot, he felt the same sense of loss he did when Grace passed away. That was a complete turning point for John. He now had nothing to live for. Both of his parents had died and he and Harry had grown apart so he was sure that she wouldn't miss him. That was when he ran into Mike Stamford. Mike studied at Bart's with John and Grace, but him and John hadn't spoken since the accident. When he had seen John pass by him that day, he couldn't just let him walk off, he had to speak to him.

John told Mike everything that day. About Grace, the army, his PTSD, his therapist, and his plans to commit suicide. He opened up to Mike in a way that he hadn't done to anyone in years. Not even his sister. Mike had to help him. He couldn't - he wouldn't - let his old friend go on like this.

That was when he arranged for John to meet Sherlock.

Sherlock completely changed John's perspective on the whole world. He made the real, dull, normal world seem extraordinary and brilliant, like Sherlock himself. Seeing the streets of London through Sherlock's eyes was exactly how Mycroft had described it to John, it was like seeing a battlefield. The battlefield that John had left behind in Afghanistan, the battlefield that he so desperately yearned for.

Although there was one thing that neither Sherlock, nor the army was able to give him, and that was what Grace had given him.

That was when John began to start going out with other women again, to see if he could find that special someone that gave him that feeling. He never did find that woman.

All of his girlfriends since Grace had never worked out. John put this down to Sherlock getting in the way, not to mention him getting his ex girlfriend Sarah kidnapped. All of John's ex's had seemed set on the same thought - as everyone else was - that John and Sherlock were in fact, secretly in love with each other.  
This idea had always been absolutely preposterous to John. But when all of his relationships - all of which were with women - had failed, he began to think that maybe they had a point. Questioning his sexuality now, after only being attracted to women for all of his life was extremely strange for John. But at this point it seemed quite logical. He had idolised Sherlock in a way he had never idolised anyone - but did he love him? Certainly he did as a friend, but whether he felt anything more than friendship towards Sherlock, he was unsure.

He contemplated this for a while. He didn't want to go all out and just spontaneously start snogging Sherlock one day. He wanted to make sure that he definitely had romantic feelings for Sherlock before acting on them.  
John didn't know how to go about testing his feelings. So for a few weeks, he would just sit, staring a Sherlock when he was working to see if he got that strange, gut feeling he did whenever he saw a good looking woman. Nothing.

So, one day, John just thought "fuck it" and imagined what it would be like to kiss Sherlock. To run his fingers through his hair and up his back.

The thought knocked John almost sick. As opposed to the fluttery, butterfly feeling he got whenever he thought about kissing a woman.

John was unmistakeably straight.

He did have very strong feelings toward Sherlock, and they were certainly love. But not the sort of love he'd had for Grace, or any other of his girlfriends. It was the sort of love he had for a good friend, or the love for a sibling. Certainly not romantic love.

John had just been sat there with Sherlock resting on him, thinking, for about an hour when he opened his eyes again. The unnamed driver and Sherlock were both still sound asleep. He daren't wake either of them. John carefully moved Sherlock so his head was carefully resting against the window on his side of the car, and got out. He couldn't see anything but water in every direction. It was a bit warmer now, but he still had to wrap his suit jacket around him tightly. The icy sea wind was unbearable. He scanned the boat for signs of another person. He saw nothing. Obviously there must have been a few people controlling the ferry, steering it and everything else, but they were nowhere to be seen.

John found a small set of metal stairs and went over to go and sit on them. He stretched, yawned and rubbed his eyes. He was still incredibly tired, but the fresh sea air had given him a bit of a kick. That was when he saw it, a sign that answered almost every question that had previously passed through his mind.  
The sign read "DEUTSCH FAHREN".

John had done German at school. He knew exactly where they were going.

***NOTES*****  
**I know that not much has happened in this and the previous chapter that has made a major impact on the main plot of the story, but I just wanted to give some background to it first.  
Thank you for the lovely reviews on the other 2 chapters by the way :)


End file.
